• Light/Dark
  • If you have been following the news, you should be aware that the people of Lebanon have been under a violent bombardment that has recently escalated. Please consider donating to help them if you can or trying to spread word of the fundraiser.

Tim Cain's (Fallout, Outer Worlds creator) YouTube channel is fascinatingly candid

ToddBonzalez

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
I went on a deep dive recently on the YouTube channel of Tim Cain (Fallout and Outer Worlds co-creator, among other games). He has many videos where he tells development stories from throughout his career and explains his viewpoints on game design and production. Here are just a small handful of his videos that I found fascinating. It's a very entertaining, informative, and sometimes harrowing look at game development through the decades from a prominent developer's perspective.

Why I Left Fallout 2
-Dishes out some honest stories about the old days at Interplay. Cain specifically gives a pretty unflattering account of Brian Fargo (Interplay CEO at the time, current InXile CEO). He discusses how Fargo denied him a bonus because he refused to call out someone on the Fallout team for causing a crash bug in the game.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGfaCXEu0tE

Why I Left Carbine's Wildstar
- Goes into his time at Carbine Studios, a now shuttered studio created by former Blizzard devs. They developed the shortlived WildStar MMO. Basically just a window into how crazy and toxic poorly managed game studios can be.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMY5LUNdS-8&t=1229s

Being a Gay Game Developer
- Insights into working in the games industry as a gay man in the 90's and early 00's (spoiler: not great!)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8fmAt3Ro_Y
 
Last edited:
Secret Bambino

Secret Bambino

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Mar 21, 2021
3,215
I watch his videos pretty much every day. Love him.

In fact, I absolutely love that game devs such as Tim, Mark Darrah, and Josh Sawyer have YouTube channels. So much good content there.
 
OP
OP
ToddBonzalez

ToddBonzalez

The Pyramids? That's nothing compared to RDR2
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
15,530
Secret Bambino said:
I watch his videos pretty much every day. Love him.

In fact, I absolutely love that game devs such as Tim, Mark Darrah, and Josh Sawyer have YouTube channels. So much good content there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I haven't seen much of Josh Sawyer's content, but Mark Darrah's is also fascinating. Hoping more devs will follow the trend once they reach the DGAF phase of their careers (in terms of playing corporate politics) like these guys have.
 
PumpkinPieAddict

PumpkinPieAddict

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,586
He also appeared in my youtube algo! I love insights from developers in general. It's like getting a debriefing and retrospective all in one from an authoritative source.
 
Secret Bambino

Secret Bambino

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Mar 21, 2021
3,215
ToddBonzalez said:
I haven't seen much of Josh Sawyer's content, but Mark Darrah's is also fascinating. Hoping more devs will follow the trend once they reach the DGAF phase of their careers (in terms of playing corporate politics) like these guys have.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Josh doesn't upload videos as frequently as Tim and Mark do, but the stuff that's there (even if some of it is quite old by now) is really good too. He also streams sometimes.

I'm with you, I want more devs to talk about the development process, their personal challenges, and the thousands of decisions they make every day. It's a fascinating topic to me, especially due to how secretive this industry is sometimes.
 
CrichtonKicks

CrichtonKicks

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,944
The Fallout 2 one is wild. Not gonna lie- 25 years later and I'm pissed at Fargo for that crap. Can't imagine how Tim felt at the time. I can only hope Fargo has improved by leaps and bounds as a manager since.

My contribution to this thread is Tim's pitch for Baldur's Gate 3 when he was at Troika. It sounded absolutely awful and also serves as a perfect capsulation of how adrift CRPG developers were at trying to figure out the rapidly changing market in the early to mid '00s. Like, full stop, this game would have just been absolute shit but I can see why they pitched what they did.

www.youtube.com

Troika's Baldur's Gate 3 Proposal

I talk about the proposal that we put together at Troika Games in July 2003 to make Baldur's Gate 3.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
Aangster

Aangster

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,772
Cain's two video chats with Leonard Boyarsky were pretty eye-opening on VtMB development. I knew about the Source engine issues, but was frustrating to see both Activision and Valve behave like uncooperative fucks about it.
 
Patison

Patison

Member
Oct 27, 2017
643
He seems like a genuinely good person and someone I would definitely like to work with, even if his ideas aren't always the best, like the BG3 pitch.
 

Roven

Member
Nov 2, 2017
997
Great channel. Very insightful regarding video game development or also software development in general
 
Bansi

Bansi

Banned
Jul 28, 2023
1,131
PCGamer said:
Cain states that his bonus for shipping the original Fallout was significantly docked, and at the personal discretion of CEO Brian Fargo. According to Cain, Fargo reappropriated a portion of his bonus for an employee Cain argues had grossly underperformed and whose original bonus reflected that assessment. The bonus was also allegedly further docked over a delay relating to a save-corrupting bug: Cain states that he refused to single out the team member responsible for it even at Fargo's request, with the CEO then assigning responsibility to Cain and cutting his bonus accordingly. We've reached out to Brian Fargo for comment, and will update this story if we hear back.

"I had made an IP from scratch that nobody believed in, except the team," Cain concludes, "And then my reward for that was more crunch, more responsibility that I didn't want, tons of interference from people who had ignored us for the last three years, and a reduced bonus to 'get me motivated.' I was done."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What the actual fuck.
 
Oski

Oski

Member
Jun 15, 2023
557
France
I'm not sure candid is the word I would have used. To gamers at large maybe, although there has been much more openness these past years from many devs (and devs to devs resources accessible by the public).

But to the industry, he is extremely careful about not nevermind burning, just shaking or even breathing too hard on any bridge whatsoever. If you can read between the lines and pay attention, you'll see him often do it, and sometimes do quite the acrobatic somersault to do so 😏
ToddBonzalez said:
Cain specifically gives a pretty unflattering account of Brian Fargo (Interplay CEO at the time, current InXile CEO). He discusses how Fargo denied him a bonus because he refused to call out someone on the Fallout team for causing a crash bug in the game.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
He also very rapidly balanced it out saying while this was one example putting Fargo in a bad light, he has bad and good examples for everyone, as others people have of him. This was not intended as an example of a pattern or a public bash, and Tim was quite fast in counterbalancing that.

I'm not saying Brian Fargo is a wonderful dev and boss, or defending either in any way whatsoever. Just relaying what Tim Cain said and balanced for those who just read or hear the quote and nothing else from his channel.

Edit: as a side note, Tim Cain has one of the best, shortest and to the point retort about... "some type" of people and their usual rhetoric. It's 30 seconds ending in literal gold:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx2CWM5MMoc
 
Last edited:
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
44,615
Oh yeah, pretty much watch every video. I've thought about making a thread based on one of his videos and the information revealed within, such as Brian Fargo being a dick or his views on crunch. But, I feel like people would just read the OP and sound off which is the exact opposite of what he wants.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.